[185] Isaiah, v. 12. In Daniel, iii. 5., we have mention of the “cornet, flute, harp, sackbut, psaltery, and dulcimer;” but it is scarcely possible to determine what these instruments really were: they probably resembled those represented in the bas-reliefs described in the text. The instrument of ten strings mentioned in Psalm xxxiii. 2., xlii. 3., and cxliv. 9., may have been the harp of the sculptures, and the psaltery the smaller stringed instrument.
[186] Niebuhr’s Thirty-fourth Lecture on Ancient History.
[187] See especially Narrative of a Residence in Koordistan, &c., by the late C. J. Rich, Esq,. vol. ii. chap, xviii.
[188] Daniel, iii.
[189] The white ass of Baghdad is much esteemed in the East. Some are of considerable size, and, when fancifully dyed with henna, their tails and ears bright red, and their bodies spotted, like an heraldic talbot, with the same color, they bear the chief priests and the men of the law, as they appear to have done from the earliest times. (Judges, v. 10.)
[190] Baghdad contained, before the great plague of 1830, 110,000 inhabitants, but can now scarcely hold many more than 50,000. It is divided into two parts by the Tigris, the smaller quarters forming suburbs on the western bank.
[191] Jeremiah, 1. 38.
[192] This is the Kasr of Rich and subsequent travellers.
[193] Isaiah, xiii. 19-22., and compare Jeremiah, 1. 39.: “therefore the wild beasts of the desert with the wild beasts of the island shall dwell there, and the owls shall dwell therein.” A large grey owl is found in great numbers, frequently in flocks of nearly a hundred, in the low shrubs among the ruins of Babylon.
[194] From this tribe was the celebrated lady of Haroun-al-Reshid, “the Zobeide,” as she was called from her origin.